A muckraker is an American journalist who tried to expose corruption in businesses and also in the government. Before the Progressive Era the first thing that started to expose problems with the country was called Yellow Journalism. Yellow Journalism included things like unethical or unprofessional practices. Yellow Journalism was the first thing to be considered pre-muckraking. The term Yellow-Journalism was created by the New York Press to describe the newspapers of Joseph Pulitzer's and William Randolph Hearst while they were fighting over who could sell the most newspapers. The two newspapers put scandals into their newspapers so that the amount of copies that were sold would go up.
Also before the Progressive Era there were a lot of political cartoons that were also trying to show the wrongdoing of the government or government officials. One of the most famous cartoon makers of the time period before the Progressive Era was Thomas Nast. He drew numerous amounts of comics that poked fun at the government. These are both examples of things that are now called pre-muckraking. There were also cartoons being made by political parties trying to get their representative elected by showing all faults of the opposite parties candidate.
Muckraking really started to take off during the Progressive Era. During the Progressive Era Muckrakers often wrote about the challenges of urban life and poverty, and against big businesses. Muckrakers were often thought to have socialistic and communistic views. Some of the most notable Muckrakers of the Progressive Era were Ida B. Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, and Upton Sinclair. Muckraking tried to expose the truth by uncovering the "dirt".Lincoln Steffens investigated corruption in the government. His results were published in the book The Shame of the Cities. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle talked about the details of the Chicago meat packing industry and the workers who died working there. Ida B. Tarbell wrote the book The History of the Standard Oil Company. The book talked about how the Standard Oil Company used harsh business practices to get smaller businesses out of business so they could take their oil. Rockefeller called her Ida Tarbarrell because of the negative press she was giving to his company. The work of these Muckrakers and many more lead to the passing of the Pure Food and Drugs Act, Federal Reserve Act, and the Meat Inspection Act.
The name Muckraker came from a speech given by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. His speech was in response to a magazine article by David Graham Phillips that attacked some of Roosevelt’s political allies. Until it was published the president had believed in what the Muckrakers were doing. After the article the president gave a speech that compared the people to a character in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress that had to rake junk and would never life his head from the stuff he was raking. After the speech the Muckrakers got a very bad reputation and were angry because their articles they wrote had helped Roosevelt get elected. Lincoln Steffens said, “Well, you have put an end to all these journalistic investigations that have made you."After the Progressive Era muckraking is still happening today. Examples of Muckrakers after the Progressive Era are Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. They were the first two people to report the Watergate Scandal, which ultimately led to President Nixon resigning. Their reporting also led to a lot of investigations of the government. Gene Roberts said that this was, “maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time. People like Michael Moore and Geraldo Rivera are also considered Muckrakers because what they have done has led to a lot of reform. Also shows such as Dateline NBC that go under cover trying to find out what people really think can also be considered Muckrakers.
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